Things we found

Have you heard of the lit up highway being prepared in the Netherlands? The one who's lights change, the colors of the lines change and images may be shown on the asfalt containing information for the drivers? That's Studio Roosegaarde's idea. They have this thing with light going, and they're on a roll really. They don't just make futuristic highways, they make art and design aswell. It's part of their innovation process, a space to experiment and share ideas. Like the Boo project. Click the photo or title for more.

These CMYK playing cards look good. Wouldn't they give away what suit your cards are? Nope, the back are all the same. Created by Hundred Million design studio. Click the photo for more about the cards.

This desk lamp by Atelier Ramun is functional and modern, connecting three colored rings with black connectors. It functionality lies in it's design that let's the user add light where necessary without the lamp being in the way, or the light shining in your face. Click the photo to go straight to Atelier Ramun's site.

The Shift cupboard collection by Pastoe is minimalist to say the least, but far from hard in it's looks. The sleek looks are softened in several ways, like by the transparant sliding panels adding a color effect that changes depeding on where you slide the panels. The thin lines that shape the cupboard seem light. Click the photo to go straight to the Pastoe website.

This is a good film to watch showing how Tilt! created the Panic Room in a Marseille hotel 'Au Vieuw Panier'. In the video you watch basically them making the artistic room, with good music. But it's fun to watch Tilt! put all the grafitti in the room (who hasn't wanted to do that to their room...) and how cool it looks in the end when only half the room is painted. Could you sleep in there, or would you panic? Click the title to go to the video.

Why should we cover our favourite chocolate in pastel shades for Easter? Fashionably France's rabbits, fish and chickens are happy to wear vibrant red, blue and yellow for this special occasion!!! La Grande Epicerie de Paris in collaboration with the chocolate maker Daniel Mercier is putting the spotlight on the tradition with this surprising colour choice. This original facet design blends art with exquisite chocolate. I can't wait for Easter chocolates but I'm not sure yet if I'll eat them! Click the photo for a beautiful video to show you how it is made.

The Labo-Pull is a french project which enhances the properties and beauty of woollen material. By recycling sweaters, designers have to use the colours that are given to them. A kind of reverse mirror for fashion trends. They can play with coloured slices by felting or gluing them together. They can also use the various types of surfaces dictated by the different patterns, colours and stiches... It becomes a new material for interiors, well known for its thermal insulation and soundproofing. Lots of new lives for old or sweaters which are too small...

Inspired by surfing culture from the 80's, Stampel produces various pieces by recycling wood and coloured them with a specific process. The vases are made from furniture manufacturing offcuts. After drilling, sanding, oiling each piece, Andrea Shaw uses spray paint to create the coloured spectrum. I like the way Andrea paints graffitis on wood. Each piece is unique and can be customized in your favourite rainbow colours. Thanks Stampel for this beautiful arty, crafty, Aussie, colourful hand made contemporary objects.

Sometimes it can be hard to choose a color palette, and having some help could be good. The Kolormondo helps you though it's unique design as a 3d colorwheel. You can see how the colors relate to eachother in terms of hue, tone and greyscale, making it easier to select your colors. You can order the puzzel, or download the app! Click the photo to go the Kolormondo website.

What would be harder: finishing all these rubik cubes properly, or setting them up such that you can make these huge murals and images out of them. Cubeworks from Toronto recently made it to the Guiness Book or Records with the largest mural makde up of these toys. It's in Macau and over 200 foot long! Interesting here is the limited amount of colors you'd have available to make images. For the proper level of detail, you'll need shadow and tones, but that's hard to realize is you only have six colors to choose from. The only solution is to combine the colored pixels such that you get the effect you need. And that would take a lot of playing around with the toys!

This project is called 'Sugar takes over the World', by Noortje Zijlstra. Food producers add sugar to food-products that we would otherwise not like to eat. They're covering food we don't like up with added sugar, to make it taste better. Coloring it up to make it nicer you could say. There's something we don't like (rats for example) and by adding some sugar to it, we will like it. The colors hide the reality of the product, and in this case the colors are sugar. Which is really bad for you! Click on the photo to see more!

If you have some time to relax, have a look at this video by Ugo Rondinone. It's called 'Rainbow Gravity'. Why do you need time to relax? It's a tad slow, the music is very laid back, and it's just a few vertical bars that change colors in different sequences. The thing is, the music is nice and the chosen color palettes are good too. So if you have 15 minutes to spare, click the title above and watch. You'll relax in no time!

We haven't seen this one before: Lumilor paint that actually lights up. It's somehow connected to a switch. When it's swtiched off the coat of paint looks normail. Switch it on and the paint lights up. The amout of applications for this is huge of course, and imagine how futuristic the roads would look if cars we're coated with this! Click the title to see what we're talking about.

The Wonmin Park Haze Chair is a special design. The key to it is isn't in the form I think. The slightly transparant panels, with it's soft hues make this furniture set comfortable to the eye eventhough the design is rational. You can see the project at the Salone in Milan starting next week. Or, click the photo to see more of the furniture set.

Studio Tobias Klein created a special installation for the Industry Gallery in Washington D.C. It's a sunset, but it isn't. With light and transparent strings hanging from the floor a sunset effect is created indoors. Click the title to see it on Vimeo.

Maarten de Ceulaer created The Leather Collection for Nilufar, together with leather specialist Ralph Baggaley. This collection will be presented at the Salone Del Mobile 2013. It's simple, it's crafted to detail. It's inspired by De Ceulaer's passion for travel: the collection consists of leather suitcases. Quality leather materials, subtle colors and perfect craftmanship makes the collection luxurious yet playful. Click the photo to see more of his work.

If you haven't seen the northern light yet, go! It's beautiful, cut you can't always count on seeing it. I once read a travel report of someone who had waited over a week to see it, and on the last night it finally happened. If you don't want to wait that long, you should go to the Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm. The whole lighting scheme in the hotel and the rooms is inspired by the Northern Light. Sweet dreams!

April 14: This busstop design is simple but different. Most busstops look like busstops. This one, by the Italian firm NYDA Design, looks like a busstop and a tree. In a way not that exciting, but it looks better than the normal dreary busstops that aren't great places to wait for the bus. And public transport is less harmful to the environment, it's green. Like the tree. Click the photo to see more.

April 17: Mina Cavid created these color blocking decals to decorate the walls. It's simple really, you get a set of decals in analogous colors and put them on your walls in any way you like. They're a great way to decorate and exemplify corners in a room. You can get them at the Blik webshop. Click the photo to see more.

April 22: These stools by Whatels Design are the result of designers been immersed in Ahmedabad, India, where yarns and fibers are been dyed all around the city. Based on rope making, the cushion formed by yarns becomes a seat. Enjoy colourful India in a simple and well-designed object. As part of the Clerkenwell Design Week, Els (of Whatels Design) will be demonstrating the making of the new 'Surrounded' stools. Wednesday 23rd of May, from 3:30pm to 6:00pm at Coffey's architecture studio, 48 Kingsway Place, London, EC1R 0LU.

Tents are often brightly colored in quite subdued tones. Ochre , greys, silver maybe. Of course there are also bright colors used in outdoors gear aswell. Field Candy takes it one step further with their sometime crazy tent designs. The classical tent design gives a lot of space, a large canvas, to do something with and most of their tents are quite out of the ordinary, like this one designed by Jonathan Zawada. Make sure to see all of their designs by clicking the photo.

Time flies when you're having fun, and pop sickles melt quickly when you're enjoying them. Do you remember as a child that it would like race to finish the pop sickle before it melted? Argentinian artist Luciana Rondolini created this giant pop sickle as a metaphor to how time goes by and how temporary things are. Especially the good ones like pop sickles... Click the photo for more images. Want to see it for real? Too late: it's melted.

Fairtrade is a popular notion now, something we believe in too. There's no good argument to undervalue somebodies work, except for your own ego or wallet. That said, there's no point in buying Fairtrade just for the sake of Fairtrade. You gotta like the objects, the products. We like these rugs by node. Designed by several different designers and you can tell by how the designs and colors are all different. Click the photo to go to the shop and see more of Made By Node.

Here's a practical shelving solution that looks different but recognizable. It's a Honeycomb, so it can be set up in several ways, whichever way you like. Use it a closet, drawers or a combination. Easy to use and available in green, purple and orange. Click the photo to see more.

May 25th by JG: Marjan van Aubel and James Shaw have experimented in their own way of using wood waste created by wood furniture manufactures. They have invented a mixture made of sawdust, chippings or shavings mixed with a bio-resin. This mixture expands into a solid, foam material. Depending on the type of wood, temperature and addition of water, the reaction can expand up to 600-700%. They apply the foaming material by hand to a mould, which makes each chair lightweight but strong and always unique. To emphasise the colour of the wood they select certain type of wood and add dye to the mix. With maple wood they add a tiny amount of pink, they add a bit of yellow to birch etc. Check out their video of the process on http://vimeo.com/48942001 or their website www.wellprovenchair.com.

We bumped into AliceXZ recently on Cruzine. She started off doing graphic design, but we learned that later on she wished she had studied illustration instead. There's no point in regretting the past if your choices we're sincere. And we love her illustrations now. That's what is important. For the Red Theme Week we selected a red portrait from Alice's portfolio. Click the image to go to her website and see more.

Are these colour and material contrasts not beautiful? Couches and chairs have been dipped into colours. The natural leather dresses up with captivating neon yellow. A way of modernising simple and confortable shapes by adding a touch of unexpected colour. But if you prefer a subtle version you can choose the deep blue on chocolate leather which is maybe more classical but still very elegant. You can discover the whole collection and see how the designer Biagetti has been inspired by landscape to create a full collection for your interior. Carpets represent vast landscapes seen by satellite and pieces of furniture use Milano sky shades. www.biagetti.net. (JG)

It's simple, but you may get lost. This A Maze In Yorkshire was built by Richard Woods and sort of look like a wall in cartoon really. You can visit it througout the summer in Wakefield at The Orangery. 'The art isn't really art, the craft isn't really craft, the design isn't really design, and the architecture certainly isn't architecture.', as he explains himself on the website. Ok! Check it out of the events at the Orangery this summer!

Why do we like this? It's simple, it's natural, and it's colorful. We're actually kind of suprised that something so simple can be so appealing. Somehow some artists manage to make it work, just a few color blocks put together. Duncan Johnson clearly knows his colors, how to use them, how to combine them. It kind of makes you feel like you can do it yourself. Check out his gallery for a full overview of his work.

Marlène Huissoud's work is about these little automatic drawings we all do when we are speaking on the phone. Except that she keeps drawing them for hours in order to question the randomness and irregularity of hand drawing. Vivid colours are hand painted at the end of the print process in a way that makes each scarf a unique piece. These little touches of colour highlights the black and white repetition and shows various possibilities for each pattern. Each piece is a square of silk made in France, which can be worn as a scarf by both women and men. www.marlene-huissoud.com (JG)

We featured Francesco Locastro in december (see article here), and since he has turned his painting into scarves, the Geo Scarf. His colors are quite bright yet soft, and the fabrics used (you can choose materials like cotton voile, silk chiffron or silk charmeuse) make them even softer. Check out his website where you can order the Geoscarf www.francescolocastro.com.

Yinka Ilori has exoticism both in his name and in his practice of design. Giving new life to abandoned every day objects he succeeds in always finding the right balance between a vintage look and a contemporary reinterpretation. Add a touch of unexpected in it and you get his mood. Lacquering in vivid colours will first give a new energising look to the piece of furniture. Then, covered by herringbone tweeds or Dutch wax, the object will get its anachronistic or exotic twist. Call it what you like, it makes me feel somewhere far from cold minimalistic design and it's just that I love these days!

The Interaction of Color, the famous book by Josef Albers (in case you haven't heard of him: his work is well known amongst art & design students and has been for over 40 years now) is now available as an app by Yale University Press. In the book, Albers presents several color experiments. The app pretty much offers the complete content of the book, but with some added features such as interviews with the now deceased Josef Albers, but you can also use the app as an actual color course. To find out more check out the website by clicking on the image.

Kit Miles allows us to travel across his imagination through his wallpaper drawings. His surrealistic world seems to be a strange mix of wildlife and creatures. All drawn by hand in a first stage, and quite recognizable as flowers, this exotic composition seems to have mutated from flowers to octopus. This cold and dark atmosphere brings to mind the depth abyss universe. With this reduced colour, the tone-on-tone jungle seems to be buried under water with very few surprising coloured elements. This journey in a Sci-Fi landscape turns into a strange fairy tale. Will you change your decoration for Kit's wallpaper and dig into a fantastic universe in your everyday life? www.kitmiles.co.uk (found by Jeanne Goutelle)

Schemata Architects like to show unexpected aspects of materials in their work. For instance, how can a simple material like wood become fun and pop? Product designer and architect Jo Nagasaka likes to slightly change the view we have about things and add surprising colour touches even in the most neutral atmospheres he builds. Neon colours here emphasise grainy timber patterns. The manufacturer uses a traditional Japanese polishing woodcraft technique called "Udukuri" that reveals a grainy surface to the wood. Three different layers of colours are applied onto this specially grained surface before creating a flat polished finish. The paints used are recycled from other projects to avoid waste.

We appreciate too the simplicity in the shape of the furniture that keeps the product really easy to live with amongst our white cube houses! Each piece is unique like a piece of art.

Starting october 11th in Brussels is a special project 'Conversation with a stranger' where you check into the Le Berger Hotel in Brussels. But you get to share your room with a stranger. In each room of the Le Berger Hotel you will be confronted with an encounter with a stranger. It's a suprise, the whole Hotel is a suprise of brief encounters of the unexpected. Each room has it's own story, and room by room you can put the pieces together of a story that covers the Le Berger Hotel. Click the title to visit the website.

We love original lighting solutions and the Dodecado lamp is just that. It's pretty, playful and practical: it's high light intensity makes it appropriate to use as a desklamp, or while camping, or to give a mood to the party! It's still being developped and the developpers want your help on Kickstarter!

The lightwave bench by After Architecture makes a practical public service, sitting in public spaces, a little more pleasurable with it's landscape inspired design which mimics the landscape surrounding the Cornell University in New York, the colors inbetween the separate wooden beams, and at night with it's light. Check out www.after-architecture.com to see more (click the image to go to the website).

Valéry Boy, a woman who did metal studies as a second professional life. She learnt the hardness of steel, the coldness of metals, the physical work of solding. The technique and material didn't stop her to create graceful shapes. For Pink Flamingo, Valérie works with copper wires and uses the soldered joints to contrast with the copper colour and give relief to the drawing. Here she reinterprets the art of tapestry with an exotic approach. The tint of the metal changes from pink to grey and the light on it gives a warm atmosphere to the wall where the pink flamingo hangs. www.valerie-boy.com Found by Jeanne Goutelle

Poppins is making some fun looking office accessories. The accessories are an easy way to freshen up an otherwise boring space. And let's face it, nobody wants to find their employees sleeping on the keyboard.

April 15: These cotton rugs by OYYO suit our style. Looking at the photo's it's obvious the desert was an inspiration for the colors and patterns. Their online store will be available starting May 2013, so be sure to check it out to order your rug before their out! Click the photo for more.

Studio Pepe from Milan. Bold colors, eclectic design. And this link brings you to their portfolio called 'abstract'. Their styling is great and we love the compositions they create. Browse their site for some videos aswell. www.studiopepe.com.

Color Objects encourages you to get a better eye and appreciation for colors and characters. To get a special selection of pics and info for you, we find designers and artists that make colorful work from all over the world. There's a lot of character in colors, and having a closer look will change your view of the world and people around you. So we share a host of pics and info from design, art, cultures and the natural world. All about colors.